The Cisco 300-215 exam is taken by any IT specialist who wants to obtain the Cisco Certified CyberOps Professional & Cisco Certified CyberOps Specialist - CyberOps Forensic Analysis and Incident Response certifications. For the former, you will also need to ace the core 350-201 exam, and the latter requires only 300-215 as the mandatory evaluation. In more detail, this exam helps the applicants leverage their skills in conducting a comprehensive and effective forensic analysis & develop an incident response procedure with the help of Cisco tools and technologies.

Candidates for 300-215 Test

As mentioned above, the candidates who want to enroll in this exam are interested in consolidating their competency in using incident response and forensic analysis techniques, fundamental concepts, and processes. Additionally, this exam is for those individuals who want to learn about threat intelligence, evidence collection & analysis, and the most important principles that should be applied in reverse engineering. Also, the Cisco 300-215 exam focuses on those partakers who are interested in adding an international certification under their belt and become valuable candidates for companies worldwide that are looking for experts in security matters.

300-215 Exam Details

In all, the 300-215 exam has a total duration of 90 minutes. The vendor doesn’t offer details on the number of questions or their format. However, considering that Cisco exams are quite difficult and complex, the applicants should expect to receive multiple-choice, multiple-answer, or drag and drop inquiries. Additionally, the actual exam is available in the English language only, and the registration fee that the candidates need to pay for it is $300. They will also need to pay the local taxes or use the available Cisco Learning Credits if they have some. Besides, the applicants can take the test online. This is one of the most popular options nowadays as it offers a lot of flexibility and comfort. On the other hand, those candidates who are not able to take the real evaluation from home can go to an available testing center and take the test in person. Luckily, Cisco has secure locations worldwide. So, the candidates will need to search for the available test center and schedule the test on one of the most convenient dates for them.

Topics Tested in 300-215 Evaluation

The Cisco 300-215 exam syllabus includes information on the main skills that the candidates need to develop if they want to get the passing score from the first attempt. Therefore, when they start preparing for the official evaluation, the examinees will need to consolidate their capabilities in the following domains:

• Gain knowledge of fundamentals

  The test-takers will need to demonstrate that they understand how to manage and deploy anti-forensic procedures, techniques, and tactics and apply them in a business environment. Also, they should consolidate their knowledge of analyzing the necessary components for developing a report dedicated to rooting cause analysis. Other topics included in this chapter focus on helping the applicants augment their abilities in recognizing obfuscation procedures and techniques as well as how YARA rules can be used to identify malware threats.

• Identifying the forensics techniques that can be used in an organization

  Within this module, the applicants will learn about recognizing the attack of MITRE that allows them to perform analysis on fileless malware. Besides, examinees should demonstrate that they know how to identify the necessary files and how they are located on the host. More so, they should become skilled in identifying IOC elements while evaluating process and log analysis and other outputs. Lastly, it’s also mandatory for candidates to learn how to build PowerShell, Bash scripts, and Python to search and parse logs as well as different data source components like Cisco Umbrella.

• Establishing techniques for incident response

  The individuals who take the Cisco 300-215 test should learn how to interpret different types of alert logs. Besides, they should become skilled at determining the attack vectors and surface as well as identifying the mitigation options in a current environment. What is more, the test-takers should know how to build the proper recommendation to build a response for day 0 exploitations and intelligence artifacts. Additionally, the specialists who want to obtain the CyberOps Professional certification should consolidate their skills in using Cisco solutions for security used in threat intelligence situations. For example, they should become familiar with using Cisco Umbrella, AMP for Network, and AMP for Endpoints components.

• Developing forensics processes

  When preparing for the official 300-215 evaluation, the examinees should become familiar with using anti-forensic techniques such as obfuscation, Geo location, and also debugging. In addition, the test-takers will need to consolidate their knowledge of analyzing network traffic & logs while managing modern web servers and applications. For instance, some of the questions will address situations related to NGINX as well as Apache infrastructure. Other subtopics included in this section focus on developing capabilities for properly evaluating files on distinguishing characteristics of different files associated with a given environment.

• Developing and managing the processes of incident response

  This is the last topic included in the exam blueprint and it focuses on developing the candidates’ ability to identify and develop the incident response goals. The test-takers, in particular, should also learn how to evaluate the ThreatGrid report components and elements mandatory when developing an incident response playbook. The specialists who want to get certified should also improve their skills at developing the next phases in the file evaluation process starting from the endpoint and moving towards the ad-hoc scans in a given environment.

Career Path

The professionals who succeed in getting the passing score in the 300-215 exam become interesting candidates for global organizations as they can demonstrate that they have a solid knowledge of incident response and forensic analysis. All in all, the successful exam-passers can apply for the following positions:

• Cybersecurity Engineer;
• Incident Manager;
• Network Engineer, etc.

According to the details available on Payscale.com, the candidates will discover that the annual payment for a Cybersecurity Engineer is almost $97k. Also, an Incident Manager can earn an annual salary of about $82k. Finally, the same site claims that a Network Engineer can get a yearly income of $75k.

Certification Path to Follow after Passing 300-215

The individuals who decide to succeed in getting the passing score in the Cisco 300-215 exam shouldn’t stop here. They can continue their certification path by earning more designations in the professional category. For example, they can enroll in the necessary exams for obtaining the DevNet Professional or CCNP Collaboration certificates. Other validations included in this category are the CCNP Data Center, CCNP Security, and CCNP Service Provider. After that, candidates can opt for expert-level certifications, some of which are the CCIE Collaboration, CCIE Data Center, CCIE Security, and the like.